Highway grinders are specialty equipment, supplied by few manufacturers. Two key suppliers provide a variety of grooving and grinding equipment for use on roadways and in similar civil engineering contexts. Grinding and grooving equipment is mounted on a purpose-specific vehicle or machine, and the surface treated as the machine progresses.
Existing highway grinders have one distinct disadvantage. They are unable to grind up close to any obstructions adjacent to the machine such as kerbs, poles, barriers etc. Generally, this is not of particular concern, as highway grinding machines are not primarily designed for urban environments, such as local roads. Nominally, however, 650 mm is as close as the existing generation of grinding machines can grind to adjacent obstructions. This is due to the straddle-type grinding head centrally mounted to the machine, which is needed to support a heavy-duty grinding drum.
When immovable obstacles are encountered, such as adjacent walls, kerbs, medians, etc, the existing generation of highway grinders are unable to get sufficiently close the edge of the surface to be grinded or grooved. This necessitates a secondary process, to achieve a consistent result over the grinding surface—that is, a result which is true to grade, and uniform in appearance, with the same longitudinal type line texture. Cold milling machines, also referred to as cold planers are not suited or permitted as a secondary process. Obviously milling equipment can be used as required, but often the texture of the highway grinder is unable to be adequately replicated. At the very least, using two distinct grinders and grinding operations is inefficient.
There accordingly exists a need, in light of the foregoing, for a solution which at least attempts to address these and other problems associated with the existing generation of highway grinding equipment, and their use.